Subject: Re: doscmd-19960502 vs. /dev/vga?
To: None <mycroft@MIT.EDU>
From: After 5 PM please slip brain through slot in door. <greywolf@defender.VAS.viewlogic.com>
List: port-i386
Date: 05/20/1996 11:34:08
John Kohl <jtk@kolvir.arlington.ma.us> writes:

   > 
   > When I try to run doscmd-19960502 with an MS-DOS 6.2 boot diskette, I
   > get either:
   > 	% doscmd
   > 	doscmd: fatal error int16 func 0x1 only supported in X mode
   > or
   > 	% doscmd -X
   > 	/dev/vga: Permission denied
   > 	Exit 1
   > or, if I chown /dev/ttyv0 to me, I get:
   > 	% doscmd -X
   > 	mmap: Invalid argument
   > 
   > It looks as if the console_init() routine wants to be able to map the
   > console video?  Does this only work with a pccons console?

To which Charles Hannum <mycroft@mit.edu> sez:

   It's not clear to me why you think `-X' does anything useful.  If you
   look in the man page, you'll see that `-x' is the option to run in an
   X window.  (`-X' is for testing purposes only, and does something
   completely different.)

Well, doesn't that go against the POLA (Principle Of Least Astonishment)?
After all, the Window System is called 'X', not 'x'.  I think I'd opt to
reverse those flags, and I doubt I'd be alone.  It should probably be filed
as a medium-level bug PR back to BSDI as well...

				--*greywolf;
--
America is quite possibly the only country to go from barbarism to
decadence without the requisite intervening period of civilisation.